The Smuggler & the Apprentice
by Alison Ocean
Summary: Role-reversal AU "That happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask." The words rolled like thunder out of his chest. She said nothing. He got the impression that his words had somehow surprised her again. Then she abruptly stood, raising her gloved hands to the mask. There was a mechanical whine and a hiss of air, and then she was pulling off the helmet.


"Careful." The word shot out like blaster fire before she could stop it. She mentally lowered her finger from the trigger but looked on with approval as the troopers lowered Ben Solo's shoulders, neck, and head more cautiously into the sturdy metal frame of the prisoner's rack. The man's impressive shoulders challenged the dimensions of the frame, but with a ringing clench the iron bar snapped into place at his waist, locking him in. Rey watched as the guards moved to fasten the wrist and ankle restraints. The aluminum cuffs flashed in the overhead light, skittering bright spots across the man's eyelids and drawing her gaze to his face.

He was still effectively neutralized, but she could sense something brewing beneath the outward calm. One closed eye twitched beneath a limp strand of sky-black hair. His head had lolled against its metal brace, and she could see the pulse pounding double-time beneath the pale skin of his throat. She inhaled slowly and absently crept her awareness outwards. She could hear the faint rhythm of his mind, distant, like a strong wind heard through a thick curtain. If she pushed harder, she knew she would get a look inside – see what was making his pulse fly. She wondered if she would find anything worth exploring, or whether it would be better to wait until he was conscious to begin. But she felt curious, if nothing else. This was the closest she'd ever been to a Skywalker – even a powerless one. Even when she'd lived in ignorance, she'd heard the legends of their family. Some part of her wondered if she would find his thoughts the same as any other creature's, or if they would be something she'd never encountered before. She mentally pushed in closer, a surprising eagerness pulling her forward…

She abruptly realized that the guards had stepped away from the prisoner and were awaiting orders. She moved physically then, making a show of stepping closer to the rack and inspecting their work. The woven fabric of her cloak brushed against the man's hand as she passed it, and she saw his index finger twitch reflexively. Her eyes lingered on the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, its carved lines visible beneath his fitted undershirt. They'd removed the leather jacket he'd worn when they were searching him for weapons and small, prickled paths were running up his arms and along the skin of his collarbone. He was cold.

She moved her gaze back to the guards.

"Leave us."

There was the sound of retreating footsteps, the familiar thud of the door snapping into place, and then they were alone. Her eyes had slid back to his face while she was listening. She stepped away a few more paces and lowered into a less-threatening crouch, still facing him. She moved silently, though she didn't fear waking him. She had made her decision; she would wait until he was conscious before probing further into his mind. Might as well keep the anticipation sweet, while it lasted. Too soon she would be done learning his secrets – secrets that would no more surprise her than those of any other prisoner. Weak, silly, worth little more than the dust they had come from. She might as well wait for them, if the waiting meant the mystery. But she wouldn't have to wait for long, now. She could sense the restlessness on him; his growing consciousness as the room grew warmer with the heat of both their bodies. Like a gathering storm, the feeling was dense, with little crackles of awareness lighting the air. Her gaze absently traced the rings of fatigue that were pooled beneath his closed eyelids. She followed the line of his body down from them, across his leather belt, down his dark trousers, all the way to his scuffed leather boots. Some part of her noted that, like his hands and shoulders, his feet were large.

She raised her eyes again. His breathing was quickening. Any moment now. She felt her limbs light up like a saber blade. Luke Skywalker was finally within her grasp. Soon she would be face to face with the only real threat she had left in this galaxy. The starving jackal, nearly forgotten in the discovery of the man in front of her, thrashed against its bone cage. She could feel it foaming at the mouth and, just like that, her patience was gone. Like the snap of a rubber band, her mind scaled the distance between them in a blink. She shoved past the cloudy membrane of his consciousness, hitting the hot, writhing core with needle precision. She inhaled through her nose–

* * *

He seized awake. Every muscle springing into action, rushing against cold hands and being mercilessly thrown back. The back of his head thudded against what felt like a hard, metallic surface, and he looked down. The hands gripping his wrists were four-inch-thick, military-grade cuffs. The arm across his chest was a solid titanium bar, warped like the rib bone of some great mastodon.

He didn't have to guess how he got here. He saw her immediately. The woman. The _thing_. Crouched before him, apparently at ease. The reflective eyes of her black metal helmet gave nothing away. Even masked and with skeins of black fabric blurring her outline, she affected an unmistakable calm. Like a predator eyeing its prey. He automatically pulled against the restraints.

"Where am I?"

Her head tilted infinitesimally to the right. "You're my guest." The soft, muffled voice was familiar and unmistakably smug. It infuriated him. He remembered hearing it before everything went black. It had spoken in his ear, above the sounds of gunfire, above the distant shouts of his crew… _The crew._

"Where are the others?"

The helmet tilted back. "You mean the murderers, traitors, and thieves you call friends?"

His teeth pressed together. She was toying with him. She continued.

"You'll be happy to hear I have no idea."

The relief came in an awesome wave. They must have escaped the base. They were smart, they could evade the First Order's fighters and survive long enough to make contact with The Resistance, he was sure of it. Looking into the endless black pools of the militant mask sitting before him, he didn't feel nearly as certain about his own fate. Blacker than ink against the chrome walls – she reminded him of a demon, crouched at his feet.

Looking down at her, he found that there was room now in his head for the anger that had been simmering beneath the stress. He could feel it spreading, licking up his arms and across his chest like fire, putting a dark flavor on his tongue. _How dare she._ This person was responsible for the deaths of who knew how many Resistance fighters; she represented a faction who, for decades, had hunted his bloodline like wolves, attempting with every conquest to smother whatever light was left in the galaxy. Even more disgusting, she had _chosen_ this life. She had chosen this endless war. It was because of people like her that he had never had a home, had never belonged anywhere in this goddamn galaxy. The pain burned along with the fury, as if the wound were reopening. He blamed her. He blamed all of the legions that had formed her, and all of the legions that would come long after she was nothing but bones in the dirt.

He stared her down, silent. If she was what he thought she was, she could probably sense the sharp edge of his feelings. His suspicions were confirmed when her head tilted lightly to the left, towards his closed fist.

"You still want to kill me." She dared to sound surprised.

"That happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask." The words rolled like thunder out of his chest.

She said nothing. He got the impression that his words had somehow surprised her again. Then she abruptly stood, raising her gloved hands to the mask. There was a mechanical whine and a hiss of air, and then she was pulling off the helmet.

Freckles. That was the first thing he saw. A small nose, precisely pointed, and dusted with a cloud of golden freckles. They seemed strange – almost unnatural – against skin that might have once been browned by the sun, but had now faded to a smooth, bloodless pallor. Hard eyes the color of kindling salted with dark flint. Pale pink lips arranged in a line that somehow looked both rigid and uncertain. Her forehead was smooth and unreadable, her eyebrows were dark slashes. The weak overhead light dribbled between them, hitting the high points of her cheekbones and making them shine like bleached bone. She was beautiful – in a still, starving way. His pulse stuttered, then picked up again, double-time. He had seen her face before. In a dream, in a nightmare.

The helmet dropped to the ground with a leaden thud.

She stepped closer to him and the light caught on curling tendrils of chestnut hair escaping from a leather tie. The golden brown was a shock against her black clothing. It brushed her shoulders with all the solemnity of sunlight on a shroud. He closed his mouth.

He kept his eyes straight ahead as she circled to his side. He didn't see the far wall though. He was still seeing her face in his mind, trying to reconcile it with that feeling of recognition that was now pacing the room, refusing to be ignored. He could feel her studying him – her gaze moving like a finger beneath his skin, pushing at his bones. He wanted to glare back, but he wouldn't give her the satisfaction.

"Tell me." Unobstructed by the mask, her voice was melodic, her words pulling up at the edges like a smile. His eyes twitched into almost a wince.

"Your mother is General Leia Organa."

That wasn't a question. He didn't respond.

"The legendary leader of the Resistance," she continued, looking away. "Born a princess, seasoned for war during the first rebellion." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her gaze slide back to him. "Her only lapse in duty seems to have been when she fornicated with a smuggler and gave birth to one...son." She let the last two words fall, like stones into deep snow.

Ben didn't move. The far wall had started to blur and warp, as things do when you stare at them, unblinking.

"Your father…" She began and suddenly he could _feel_ her smirk, even as the muscles of his stomach tensed involuntarily.

"Disgraced criminal turned war hero." She continued derisively. "He would have turned tail and run from the war, if your mother hadn't had him thoroughly wrapped around her royal finger…"

He didn't realize he'd turned his head until her cold, fathomless pupils were rearing closer to his. His entire body had twisted against the metal frame in one single, violent shove.

" _You don't know my father_." The words, and the ferocity with which he spat them out, left a familiar throb in his chest.

Sable eyebrows raised slightly – the only indication that she'd registered his reaction. The rest of her didn't break rank as she leaned threateningly closer. "I know you, _Ben Solo_."

The sentence sounded unfinished. It was as if she'd meant to say, _I know you… and_ _are you so very different_?

Her forehead was a few inches from his left shoulder, and he could smell the salt on her skin. It was oddly primal, like an animal that has nearly finished toying with its prey and is warming to the kill.

She surprised him by stepping back. He followed the movement automatically – it didn't occur to him to look away from her again. She planted her feet and faced him head-on.  
"Where is Luke Skywalker?"

It felt like ice water had been shot into his veins, stiffening his limbs, drying up his mouth. He'd suspected this much, but it was still a shock to hear her say it outright. She made his uncle's name sound like a stranger's. She made it sound cursed.

And wasn't it?

He wanted to sigh. He wanted to hit something. So _this_ was what it had all been for. He stared back at her, jaw locked, even as he felt the dread coiling behind his eyes.

He had the answers she wanted.

The map. The map that was never meant for him to see – probably for this very reason. The map that led to Luke Skywalker.

He remembered his premonition on Takonda, the feeling that fate's snapping jaws were finally finding purchase on him. He'd known the second he'd laid eyes on her that she had come with a more insidious purpose than just intercepting a Resistance transport. He'd sensed that she would be the catalyst for an upheaval, the consequences of which he could only begin to imagine.

He should never have seen that map. He wished he could excise the image from his mind with a scalpel.

Wishes didn't carry weight in this galaxy. They certainly didn't here, in the dark belly of an imperial cruiser. He'd seen it. She knew. Somewhere in the back of his head, he wondered which would come first – his death or his surrender.

He didn't know what she saw on his face, but something there seemed to dissolve her patience.

"You know I can take whatever I want." The threat was undeniable. He hardly had time to register the movement before she'd raised her gloved hand towards his cheek, almost like a caress. And then…

Then he was clenched fists and sharp, panting breaths between gritted teeth – pressed so hard together he was sure they would break.

Then he was tight muscles and fear and _resistance_ , pushing so hard against his skull he wasn't certain that he wasn't going to pass out. He was all of these things at once and she was all of them with him, because she was _there_. In his mind. Pushing back.

 _"Listen, kid. There's a thing about interrogations…"_

His father's voice rang in his ears, unnervingly clear after so many years. A forgotten lesson from when he was a child. He could still remember the way Han Solo had stopped and seemed to study him, making sure he was paying attention before continuing.

 _"The guy asking the questions always wants answers,"_ he'd held his palms open in an obvious gesture. _"That's all he wants. So you can either stay quiet and let him cut you up. Or…"_ he'd rolled his hand like he was leading up to something, " _you can give him some answers."_ Ben had furrowed his brow, perplexed. Han had seen that and raised an eyebrow. Then he'd leaned close conspiratorially. _"Improvise, Ben. Tell a story. Keep talking."_ He'd leaned back. _"You ever heard the phrase 'talk is cheap'? Well bail is expensive. Stall as long as you can – until your buddies can spring you, or until you spring yourself. You got it?"_ Ben had nodded dutifully, earning a grin. _"Good."_

Han had shoved himself up from the Falcon's round tabletop, leaving Ben to re-focus on the navigational charts in from of him. He hadn't missed, however, when his father had murmured under his breath, _"Maker knows, you might need it someday."_

Ben had grown older, and he hadn't followed the well-intentioned advice. He had flown ships from one end of the galaxy to the other. He had woven in and out of imperial crosshairs. He knew the cold bite of handcuffs on his skin, a feeling that had always stayed with him more sharply than most memories of his father. When he was questioned, he stayed silent. Whatever the low-life shavs thought they could hold over him, they held nothing as long as he kept his mouth shut. He knew that, at the end of the pain and the sweat and the shouting, all they would have in front of them was a wall.

But there was no pain here except for the pain of his jaw, wound tight. There was no sweat except for the cold beads he could feel forming on the back of his neck. There was no shouting, only the quiet hum of both of their breathing, and something else – a ringing echo that felt familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. And the memory of his father's lesson flew in his face as if it could help him.

Even if he felt capable of speech, what would he say? Everything that crossed his mind was crossing another's just as fast. There was no distraction in this little room. There was no rescue coming, as far as he knew. There was nothing he could do but fight for every inch she plucked out of his head.

 _So this is what it's like_ , some part of him observed, _to go up against a force-sensitive and lose._

He concentrated harder, willing his mind to go blank. Willing himself to give her nothing.

He felt rather than saw her hand turning at the wrist. Feeling him out, every thought he had, every memory. She was sifting through it all with chaotic efficiency. Something shifted, and the memories of his childhood suddenly percolated like oil, black and viscous, staining everything else. He _felt_ himself as he'd been then, and as he was now. Evidently, she did, too.

"You're so lonely." Her voice was unexpectedly soft. A murmur instead of a growl in the darkness. If anything, it made the feelings more poignant. He fought to swallow. His mouth tasted like metal.

"So afraid to leave…but terrified to stay…" The memories hit him, quick and painful, as he struggled silently against her. The last time he'd seen his mother, her upturned face a distant smudge, watching him fade away from the landing dock of a cruiser. The whispered voices, the stares, the shame that had painted the hallways of the senate where he'd played as a child. His father's face most recently, when he thought no one was looking – the longing and uncertainty competing for dominance there. The yearning, so constant it was like a second heartbeat inside him, for something in this galaxy that felt like home. For something that wouldn't feel like sand slipping through his fingers.

"At night, desperate to sleep…" she continued, needlessly. Neither of them needed the verbal descriptions. Both of them were lost, in some sense, to his mind. "…you imagine an ocean. I see it. I see the island." He could feel her warm breath, totally at odds with the setting, washing over the shell of his left ear. "The rain…it's so thick there. Like cold sheets." Her voice was almost a whisper. "You feel like you could get lost in them…"

" _Get out of my head_." He could hear the bile in his voice as he bit off the words. She relented and stepped back, but kept her arm raised, her palm centered on his temple.

"I know you've seen the map." The threat was back. "It's in there. And now you'll give it to me."

 _No._

He fought the presence in his mind with everything he had. It felt like he was keeping it at bay with sheer willpower.

 _No._

He saw his mother's face.

 _No._

"I'm not giving you…anything," he forced out.

Her lips twitched. The barest of smirks. "We'll see."

Then there was silence, except for that distant resonance, like a storm heard from the bottom of an ocean. Time passed endlessly. It could have been seconds, it could have been hours. But suddenly, he was thinking of the sand slipping through his fingers again. Because that's what it felt like. Slowly, disjointedly, thin trickles speeding up and up and up into a steady stream. Images, feelings, memories rushing towards him. Not his own.

As she burrowed deeper into his mind, carelessly pilfering every thought, starving for answers…he had somehow stumbled into hers.

The awareness hit him, bringing everything into focus so sharply, he could have been walking through life blind up until this moment. He stared into her hard eyes, reaching into forever like black holes, and he felt it running through his veins for the very first time. _Power._

He pushed back. And the sky opened up.

He saw a little girl, being dragged across blinding sand by a relentless hand. Her face already puce with blood and terror, she screamed up at the sky as a small spacecraft shot out towards the horizon like an arrow from a bow. The abandonment, the pain she carried…he felt his body shudder under the weight of it.

He re-focused on her expression. It wasn't assured anymore. Her jaw ticked. Shadows of worry gathered in the hollows of her face. He realized he was leaning towards her, his entire body straining against the cuffs. Her hand hovered mere inches from his forehead. It shook. Her fingers wavered, and he felt her uncertainty as he caught glimpses of the strength she sensed from him.

The images shifted again, and he saw the cold hand of another master curling around her matured shoulders. He felt her desperation to please this person. He felt her reckless aggression, held barely in check by this deathless loyalty, and by something else. A greater fear. He pushed closer, wanting to see. The fear was so large, it felt like the molten core of a planet, leaching into every other aspect of her. Suddenly, he knew her better than he had ever known anyone.

" _You_ …" He felt her dread, still equivocal in the confusion of the moment. "You're afraid."

Something in her flinched.

"That you will never be anything but a _scavenger_ …"

With a vicious motion she swung her hand down and away from him. The connection snapped. His mind abruptly was free of her, and hers of him. He should have felt lightheaded with the sudden release, but he didn't. He felt strong.

Eyes wide, her pupils had contracted to almost nonexistence, velvet irises exploding around black orbs. The distant hum was gone. The sound of their panting breaths was the only thing reverberating against the walls.

* * *

She'd dropped her hand. She'd closed the connection.

She'd closed the connection. She'd dropped her hand.

She knew she had. She could feel it down by her side. Tiny jolts of electricity zinged up her arm with every quiver of her fingers. And yet she still had the urge to check. She still felt vivisected. How…how had he done it? How could she have _let_ him do it? This nothing, this _smuggler_ …he had…

She could feel the humiliation blooming on her cheeks, searing hot. Those eyes. Those hazel eyes shone with such a look of triumph that she felt physically sickened by it.

A Skywalker. A bloody Skywalker. That was the only explanation. But she'd heard the rumors, and she'd _seen his mind_. He was not like the other Skywalkers. He had been _worthless_ …

 _Had been._ Her heartbeat thumped in her ears. _Had been, had been, had been…_

If it offered any consolation to her, he looked as shocked as she felt. But that was no consolation at all.

She absently felt her shoulder hit a wall. She couldn't remember backing away. The room seemed to be getting smaller. The sweat on Ben Solo's facing, the heaving muscles of his chest, everything stood out in aggressive relief.

Hunted. She felt hunted. It was the prickly sensation of eyes on the back of your neck, but these eyes were in front of her, and it wasn't her neck that she was worried about. He had seen her. He had seen everything.

 _No._

With that one word, the jackal found its teeth again. She swallowed. Straightened her spine.

Supreme Leader would know what to do. This man…this _boy_ …may have been stronger than either of them had predicted. But the Supreme Leader could annihilate him with a twist of his fingers. Perhaps he would.

She didn't look at him as she left. She didn't feel his eyes on her. She didn't feel his presence linger like a stain on her thoughts the farther she got from the room. She didn't quicken her pace as she crossed the halls. Her lungs didn't hitch and stutter, as if the very air were trying to see into her, too.


End file.
